


Cursed

by iamhighondumbbitchjuice



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Skating, Katsuki Yuuri is there to help, Loop, M/M, POV Katsuki Yuuri, Victor Nikiforov is cursed, a bit of angst but mostly just fluff hehe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamhighondumbbitchjuice/pseuds/iamhighondumbbitchjuice
Summary: Victor Nikiforov has been cursed for years: forced to perform the same routine over and over again until someone skates the routinewithhim.The wide world believes he's just a ghost, haunting a simple rink in Saint-Petersburg, and thus no one ever dares to come near him, until a certain black-haired someone suddenlydoes.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 14
Kudos: 63





	Cursed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Justlikewriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justlikewriting/gifts).



> I honestly don't know too much about ice-skating and the possibilities as far as positions go, so maybe some of the positions mentioned in this fic are unrealistic hehe, sorry in advance, feel free to let me know about any mistakes I might've made.  
> That's all, enjoy!

“I swear to you, Yuuri, the ghost exists and it’s in _there_!” At the last word Phichit pointed decisively at the door of the skating rink, moving his hand up and down with wide, scared eyes.

“Phichit!" Yuuri called, shaking his best friend's shoulders lightly. "You still believe in that ghost?! It was years ago you supposedly saw it, I mean, how do you know it isn’t just some kind of trick the rink owners use for, I don’t know, tourism?” Yuuri wasn't often quite so confident in his words, but for some reason, tonight, he was. 

It was a crisp winter’s evening in Russia: the snow was falling fresh from the sky, forming thick layers of white above the surface. Lights were scarce in this part of Saint-Petersburg: the streets mostly lit by the eerie glow of moonlight. Phichit and Yuuri were standing in front of one of the _many_ ice-skating rinks in the city: the only one that was still opened at this hour, the only one that didn’t have an abundance of other skaters practising, and coincidentally also the one that _apparently_ had a ghost in it. 

“No, Yuuri, I know what I saw and I _refuse_ to go back in there! It was beyond creepy.”

Yuuri creased his brows in thought. “You know what?" he said. "I’ll go inside and if there’s a ghost, you’ll be right and we’ll leave immediately, if there isn’t, though…” 

“If there isn’t, I’ll buy you hot chocolate! For after the free skate of course!”

“Deal!” Yuuri flashed a small smile at Phichit and started walking towards the entrance of the rink, for once not so much as a falter to his step. 

When he opened the big red door to the rink, he was immediately greeted by the sight of an old, gray-haired woman lazily chewing bubblegum, behind a counter decorated in blue and red swirls of paint. 

“Hello!” Yuuri greeted in wonky English. 

The woman, at first, kept on chewing her bubblegum, not paying attention to Yuuri, before throwing her gum in the trash and _slowly_ , oh so slowly, blinking up at him. 

“Hi… ,” she answered eventually, her voice layered in a thick Russian accent, that was, surprisingly, already distinctly recognizable after only saying one word. Normally Yuuri would've found the accent pretty, beautiful even, but on her it sounded like an indifferent drawl, one that would not be pretty no matter _what_ accent it was spoken in. 

“Yeah, um, hi, I was wondering if I’d be able to skate here?”

“Yes,” the woman answered, popping another piece of neon pink bubblegum into her mouth. “that is, after all, what a skating rink is for.”

Yuuri flushed slightly at the older woman's obvious jab, his previous confidence dissolving a bit. “Exactly! So, could I get access for a couple of hours?”

The old woman hummed, handing Yuuri a green bracelet. “There, that’s access for three hours.” She leaned in conspiratorially, putting her hand beside her mouth, a smirk plastered on her face and a mysterious glint in her eyes. “Watch out for the ghost, though.”

Yuuri took the bracelet with just a tiny bit of creeping hesitation, before immediately shaking the feeling off when he remembered that ghosts weren’t _real_. “Right,” he said, starting towards the rink itself. “Thank you.”

“That will be six hundred roubles please,” the woman’s grainy voice called out from behind, the smirk obvious in her voice. 

Yuuri flushed even deeper and immediately turned back around to pay, apologizing profusely for not doing so before he had walked off. 

Once he was finally done paying he opened the big transparent doors to the actual rink; the chilly air hitting him in the face the moment he did so. The rink was big and deserted, the lights were sharp and painful to the eyes and the paint that was meant to cover the wooden edges of the ice was breaking apart. Luckily, though, the ice was still frozen and neat, no lines and uneven spaces carved into it. 

But most of all: no ghost anywhere in sight. 

Yuuri grinned to himself and took the skates out of his bag, before pulling his phone out too. 

He slowly unclasped his skates and searched up Phichit's contact on his phone lazily. Yuuri was ready to tell Phichit that the rink was ghost-free and that Yuuri, thus, would, in the near future, be expecting some well deserved hot chocolate from his best friend. 

When Yuuri pressed the 'call' button on his phone, though, the device immediately went to voicemail, as if Phichit had his phone off. Furrowing his brows, Yuuri tried again, knowing that _Phichit_ out of all people would _never_ turn his phone off. 

Yuuri quickly discovered that it was no use, because no matter how hard he tried, the call kept on going to immediate voicemail. He was beginning to get worried, suddenly remembering that leaving your best friend outside in the middle of Saint-Petersburg at some random hour in the night probably wasn't the best idea. 

Yuuri hurriedly got up, scrambling to get his skates back into his bag, when suddenly, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye:

There was a strange pearly light in the middle of the rink, floating above the frozen, untouched ice. 

Yuuri slowly blinked, once, twice, thrice even, but it was still there: radiating a soft glow. 

"What in--," he murmured, baffled. 

Yuuri's words were cut off when, out of the blue, the light started moving above the ice. 

The light seemed to be dancing: making small circles, that slowly grew bigger, next the light floated a little higher than normally for a split-second, before coming down as if landing a jump. The elegant, soft paths that the light seemed to weave across the rink never left as much as a mark in the ice.

_Was this the ghost?_

No, it couldn't possibly be: ghosts weren't _real_ , it was just a ginormous pearly firefly, there was no other explanation. 

Yet, Yuuri's gaze stayed on the light, entranced by the way it seemed to move, it seemed to pull him to the ice, egging him to _please skate_. 

Yuuri couldn't do much apart from taking a hesitant small step to the door, in rebellion to the strong urge to jump on the frozen plane before him. 

Then, as if enough hadn’t already happened, the light began the _grow_. It extended and extended to form… 

A _person_ and a gorgeous one at that: short platinum silver hair, a lean male body dressed in a glistening silver suit, that was a slightly darker shade than his hair, high cheekbones, blue eyes and _skates_ on his feet. 

Yuuri's eyes grew to the size of tennis balls as he, without really noticing it, took a few steps towards the ice. He couldn't even really find it within himself to think about how there was a literal _ghost_ in front of him, for he was too caught up in the person dancing before him. 

Because that was what the unidentified person was doing: dancing. The man's arms were fluidly swinging around, circling his body elegantly as he spinned, jumped and skated across the ice. His pearl colored skates _were_ hitting the ice now, but they left nothing behind to prove that they had, in fact, been there, for there were no cuts on the still, seemingly, untouched frozen surface. 

Yuuri's mouth was agape as he watched and after a while of observing, he slowly started to notice a pattern in the man's movements. It was as if the man was repeating himself, as if he was performing an ice skating routine instead of randomly moving around, stuck in an unending loop. Furthermore the man didn't seem to see Yuuri standing there, it was almost as if he looked through him, the man's eyes dull as if his mind wasn't quite in the present. 

Slowly the initial shock of the situation faded away, but the urge to jump on the ice and _skate_ never left, and eventually Yuuri was just rendered useless, staring with a slight frown and wide eyes at the man on the ice.

Without really realizing what he was doing, Yuuri took a seat on the wooden bench closer to the rink, getting an even closer look at the man on the ice and silently observing him. The more Yuuri looked the more he started to notice that the man _was_ in fact dancing a certain routine, a curious one at that, but still, a routine. 

_What if?_

An idea started to burn in Yuuri's head and as soon as he'd thought of it he couldn't quite get rid of it. He reached inside of his bag and took his skates out, all of his movements slow, cautious, in case the ghost man decided to jump him or something. Yuuri slowly wrapped his skates around his feet, closing the clasps tightly, and stood up. 

Cautiously he walked to the edge of the rink, right where skaters would be able to get onto the ice, watched for a few more seconds, and when the dancing man didn't react at _all_ to him being there, Yuuri stepped on the ice.

Yuuri slid smoothly across the frozen white plane, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the man as he reached for him. It wasn't like Yuuri had a clue of what he was doing or _why_ he was doing it: for some reason it just felt _right_.

The man's absent eyes didn't seem to see Yuuri getting closer, until Yuuri softly placed a hand in his. Yuuri hadn't been quite sure if he would've been able to take the man's hand at all, for ghosts weren't usually _solid_ , were they? Yet it was there, skin cold, pale and soft against Yuuri's. The man didn't shift his eyes to meet Yuuri's, neither did he tighten his grip on the hand clasped in his, but he didn't let go either, instead, the man's eyes seemed to start glistening, clearing up, as he kept swirling across the ice. 

Yuuri had observed the man dancing enough to know what he would do next, following him in the routine as best as Yuuri could. 

Their moves were fast and smooth, Yuuri being the only one to leave dents in the ice, but unrelenting nonetheless, refusing to let go of the white-haired man. They hadn't made any jumps yet, but Yuuri knew there was one upcoming _very_ soon and right before they went in for the leap, the man's eyes suddenly shifted towards Yuuri, shining, shining like the man was really _there_ and aware of the person he was dancing with.

They went in for the first jump. 

And it was beautiful, perfect even: they had moved in harmony, and Yuuri had had his arms wrapped around the man as they did so, landing the jump more gracefully than Yuuri had ever done before. Yuuri couldn't stop a wide grin from spreading on his face as he thought of how an audience would have cheered had they'd seen this. 

Yuuri looked away from the man's face for a second and when he returned his gaze he saw that the man was frowning in slight confusion, before his previous blank slate of a face suddenly lit up with a _smile_.

Then Yuuri felt it. 

The man's hands tightened their grips on Yuuri's and one cold arm suddenly surrounded him, holding him in a tight embrace as they danced. 

Something in the man was still absent, like a piece of his soul was missing, but other - frankly smaller - parts had seemingly been restored somehow. Yuuri still didn't at all know what he was doing, but it was fine, because he was sliding smoothly across the ice and being held by what had to be the prettiest man he'd ever seen. 

Still in trance because of the almost hypnotic dance, Yuuri kept going and the man's smiles kept growing, eyes firmly trained on Yuuri as he held him in an embrace. 

Eventually, when they landed the second jump of the routine, with a surprising elegance for two people who had never skated together before, something else happened. 

"You're finally here."

The man had spoken: it was soft, gravelly and raw, as if he hadn't said anything in years, yet the words were there; determined and almost gentle and drenched in a Russian accent.

And maybe because Yuuri's brain cells had been rendered absolutely _useless_ he had answered a dumb and obvious, "I'm here."

The man didn't answer him, but his smile _did_ widen again and, briefly, Yuuri couldn't help but wonder how much further the man's grin could stretch until it would inevitably break his face in half.

They slid across the ice some more, going into a riveting step sequence and an Ina Bauer when Yuuri suddenly started hearing another pair of skates wrecking the ice. In surprise, Yuuri looked down and saw that his ears hadn't, in fact, betrayed him, because where there hadn't been any marks in the ice before, there now were shallow lines perfectly matching Yuuri's. The man’s skates were actually _hitting_ the ice now, creating dents.

Yuuri gasped and looked up at the other skater again, who was staring down, mouth agape and eyes wide. When the man looked up again their eyes crossed paths and Yuuri couldn't help but notice how one small, crystal tear was making its way down the other's cheek. 

"Here, let me," Yuuri said, not quite understanding where his confidence was coming from as he went to wipe the tear off the man's face. The man didn't seem to mind though, as he inclined his head into the touch, letting out an almost undetectably soft sigh.

They kept skating and by the time the third jump had come and went, the man spoke up again, "I'm Victor," he said, voice still soft, but more fluent, as if it was taking him less effort to speak now. 

Yuuri smiled gently, so gently, that it even surprised himself and nodded. "My name's Yuuri."

Victor just hummed as they kept moving, feeling the ice shift under their skates. 

Yuuri knew that they were nearing the ending of the routine: one more jump, one more spin, the ending position and then it would be over. He felt strangely reluctant to let go of Victor though, having grown pleased with the hand intertwined with his, the other man's skin warming under Yuri's, losing its previous chill. 

The initial pull of dancing with Victor had faded, leaving a bizarre kind of _fondness_ in the pit of Yuuri's stomach. It wasn't quite normal to feel fondness for someone you saw for the first time an hour ago, yet it felt natural somehow. 

It all hit Yuuri when they went in for the fourth and last jump: he was dancing with someone that might be a ghost, was enjoying it immensely and on top of that also had started developing _feelings_ in under an hour, that had to be a record. 

Yuuri let out a bubbling laugh, not bothering to try and hide it. Victor frowned in light confusion as he looked down at Yuuri's mouth, seemingly not quite understanding why he was suddenly laughing. Yuuri quickly quelled his laughter, not wanting Victor to feel insecure. 

They spinned around in circles, twirling around each other in unison, creating deep crevices in the ice with their skates. 

Soon, all too soon, they went in for the ending position: Victor still had a strange gleam in his eyes, arms wrapped around Yuuri almost protectively, he had one leg outstretched backwards, as if doing an Ina Bauer without the arms, Yuuri on the other hand had his arms far above his head, his body elegantly poised, tight like a wire. 

And then Yuuri felt how Victor's arms slowly let go of him. 

Yuuri half expected Victor to go back into the never ending loop of replaying the routine, but somehow everything felt slightly different from before and Yuuri was _hoping_ that Victor _wouldn't_ dance.

He didn’t.

Instead he stood completely still, frozen on the spot, eyes wide. That's when the tears came: they soundlessly trickled down Victor's pale face and onto the ice, and Victor touched his face in wonder, trailing them as if surprised that they were there. 

Yuuri slid closer and extended one of his own hands. Victor's eyes returned to Yuuri's face at the gesture, his gaze clear and present. Victor took his outstretched hand into his. 

"Thank you." The words sounded broken. "Thank you _so_ much."

Yuuri didn't answer, instead he, yet again, did something that was completely out of character for him, and brought his other hand up to cup Victor's face: the tears now falling onto Yuuri's hand instead of the ice. 

Yuuri swiped a few stray hairs out of Victor's face, keeping the hair from poking into his eyes. 

Before Yuuri could really register what was happening, he felt two strong arms grip him and pull him in flush against Victor's chest. 

Yuuri felt how Victor put his face in the crook of Yuuri's neck, his skating suit now staining with tears as Victor whispered an infinite amount of _Thank you_ 's into his ear.

"I don't even know what I did," Yuuri breathed, so softly that it was barely even there. 

Victor pulled away from their embrace just enough to look deeply into Yuuri's eyes, his gaze was serious. "You set me free."

Yuuri didn't quite understand what that meant, but that was fine, and as he wiped the tear tracks off Victor's face he vaguely remembered that his friend was outside, waiting for him. 

"Wanna get out of here?" Yuuri asked, voice still soft.

Victor grinned at that. "With pleasure."

Yuuri led them off the ice, his hand still clasped in Victor's. He put on his normal shoes and laughed as he gave Victor some spare sneakers he had with him at all times. They left the rink together, the eyes of the old woman behind the counter burning into their backs as they did so. 

When they were finally outside in the crisp winter air Yuuri spotted Phichit, who had taken refuge from the cold, in a bar on the opposite side of the street, his face lit up by his phone screen. Yuuri smiled at Victor and led him inside, heading straight for Phichit. 

"So," Phichit started as he looked up at Yuuri. "did you see the--" He promptly cut off his words when he saw Victor standing there, and gaped at him, letting his eyes wander over the silver skating outfit that Victor was wearing. 

Yuuri shrugged, ignoring how Phichit had stopped talking mid-sentence. "Something like that."

**Author's Note:**

> So was it okay? I'm open to any constructive feedback hehe. This was my first time writing a Yuri on Ice fic so I sincerely hope that I did the characters a bit of justice :)  
> Have an amazing day/night and I hope to catch you next time :)))


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